Great Gaming + Terrible Movies

If I want to eat an American club sandwich at 1:10am in my hotel room for 68 Yuan in China, then I have that right under communistic law.. maybe .. perhaps .. probably not.

So the news of the day for today is that I’m hungry, however despite that setback it has been a good one. I never did find that toy store, but I did find an arcade and it is the reason I’m coming home so late. Throwing caution to the wind I walked the dark streets of Shanghai past midnight, so that I could not only play in the arcade for hours, but watch the worst movie ever conceived by man.

Yes I watched ‘The Legend of Hercules’ and laughed my way through the weakest, most hilariously terrible insult to Greek culture since that crappy spin off sitcom that spawned from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Bad acting doesn’t say it enough, it’s literally as if they tried desperately to be as unconvincing and provide as much awkwardness as they could. Perhaps they knew an oscar was so far from their reach, that they turned around and started pursuing Razzies to gain some spotlight instead. (Razzie’s are Oscar equivalents, for most horrible performances and movies). It was complete garbage.

The arcade was awesome though, but how could it not be, you can’t mess up Asian city and arcade combination. It was called ‘Toms World’ and it was clearly aimed at kids, right down to the bored bear mascot sitting on a bench outside the front. But it had plenty of grownups tearing it up on some very loud and addicting machines. My favourite ones were the parents clearly very engrossed in a shoot-em-up game, while half holding a baby and introducing their child to their interests the best way they know how.

To me it’s like arcade games were something we took seriously like 30 years ago, but something that Asian mega countries have taken up the mantel for and dominate unrivalled by anyone else. All the games were in Japanese or Chinese, but it wasn’t an issue because they were loud and colourful and sent me on a major high of unmeasured happiness. There was one ridiculous game in English, so naturally we blew through half our coins to completely finish it. It was a safari quest game in which the two protagonists go on a guided nature tour from hell and have to shoot mosquitoes with automatic rifles, the pieces are all there. Besides the one character with an Australian accent, i’d say it held it’s own against its Asian gaming machine rivals.

My friend and I burned out way through hours of fun for very little money, all day we spent under $15 for huge bags of tokens that stretched really far. At the end we’d compiled a huge amount of tickets, but not even half as much as what would be needed to swap for the smallest thing.So we literally picked out favourite kid (a super cute little girl) and gave them to her, her surprised face was way better than the half a pencil we would have bought with them.

Another highlight has been the Samsung Galaxy 5 launch on Ninjing street. Samsung have set up a massive area with a stage, a dance floor and several little covered areas for you to play with their new phones right in the heart of the city. Its a big outside area right on the street and is pumping music all day and night and has a huge LED screen alternating between two commercials for the new product. However the standout is the two lollypop girls. All day and night there are two massive poles set up, on these polls are giant balls, and half inside the balls are girls. Their torso, arms and head stick out and using their core and leg muscles they manipulate the ball to sway forward and backwards. Its cool but bazaar sight, these two women sticking out of two massive lollypops in the ground, but it looks futuristic and gives the whole event a China edge.

Well guys we’ve only got one day left in Shanghai and we’re off to Beijing, once we’re done with that things are gonna change quite a lot once again as we head briefly back home to Australia, before heading back to America. Its gonna be a crazy ride so don’t miss any of it 🙂

The Jedi Archives

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